The President asked all residents to prioritise the development of rural areas if town dwellers are to benefit from the country’s development

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on Wednesday commissioned the issuance of land titles for people in the districts of Kabale, Kisoro, Rukiga and Rubanda.

This followed the opening up of a zonal office for the lands ministry for Kabale on Wednesday. The offices located in Kikungiri, Kabale Municipality will be responsible for the issuance of land titles and other land-related issues for residents in the neighbouring areas.

While commissioning the exercise, Museveni handed over nine land titles to some citizens as a way of encouraging others to embrace the process.

At the same function, the President also launched roads that were constructed under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) project, an initiative of the World Bank that seeks to enhance infrastructure development in select municipalities.

The sh13bn project saw the upgrade of six roads in Kabale Municipality. These are Kigongi Road, Nyerere Road, Nyerere Avenue, Bank Lane, Keita Road and Nkunda Road. All the roads make up a distance of 3km.

Addressing stakeholders after the exercise, Museveni asked all residents to prioritise the development of rural areas if town dwellers are to benefit from the country’s development.

“Most people tend to look at development from the urban centres and they forget that towns depend majorly on villages for sustainable development. If we are to attain much progress, we should ensure that both rural and urban areas are developing together,” said Museveni.

President Museveni with some of the people who received their land titles. Photo by Job Namanya

He condemned the act of fronting traditional practices in a modern society which has limited the growth of some communities.

“In Kabale, there is a great tendency of fronting the traditional crop which is sorghum yet experience has proved that there could be more productive crops than sorghum,” added Museveni.

Speaking at the same function, the lands state minister, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, revealed that they had embarked on opening zonal offices in other parts of the country to enable ministerial work to get closer to people.

Concerning the USMID roads project, Baryomunsi said that 14 towns benefited first since most of them had lost the beauty in infrastructure due to their long existence.

He noted that Kabale Municipality had received another boost of Ushs.30bn from the president to improve roads such as Rushoroza Road, Rugarama, Bwankwosya, Bushekwire, Mutebile, Rushaki, Katimbo and Bugongi.

Other key development priorities the government has in stock for Kabale include the construction of the garage street market and a modern abattoir.

Baryomunsi asked stakeholders to guard jealously the newly constructed projects so as to keep a beautiful image of their town.

The Kabale Municipality mayor, Ssentaro Byamugisha hailed the government for its continued support of the area’s development but cited a need for more technical and logistical boost for more development.

“We are focusing on having a standard tourism city which will be as clean as Kigali and thus we need more specialised equipment to help in cleaning up this town,” said Byamugisha.